28 Aug 06
Originally posted by ngeisler88I don't follow your line of thinking. You are referring to "truthful facts", which demonstrates to me that you are not following the correspondence theory. No agent "defines" facts. Facts just are: they are entities that consist of particulars and related properties. The correspondence theory relies on a metaphysics of such facts.
Thank you for your answer.
But heres a problem I see then. What defines a fact? (which is a tangent I realize but I will relate) In order for a fact to be used, doesnt it or at least shouldnt it be a true fact? That makes sense to me. If youre presenting an argumetn, per say, and citing examples, then wouldnt you want to be citing factually? meaning ...[text shortened]... logic, your assessment will be broken down infinte times in somewhat of a spiraling effect.
Your recursive argument misrepresents the correspondence theory: within the theory, truth is not something that supervenes on fact alone; rather, truth is a relationship between fact AND propositional content.
28 Aug 06
Originally posted by PawnokeyholeTruth is justified assertability.
Truth is justified assertability. However, what counts as justification can vary from situation to situation, and probably lacks any common feature. Hence, truth may lack any essence, and the search for it may be in vain.
What sort of justification here would be sufficient? I'm asking because we often take it to be the case that many forms of justification (epistemological, e.g.) are compatible with falsity.
28 Aug 06
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Originally posted by dottewellBut "meal" is a concept in our (shared) language!
But "meal" is a concept in our (shared) language!
Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! --Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for eve of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
Yes, and we are trying to communicate in that shared language. Granted.
Can you taste food without that concept? Do you need the menu to tell you what the food tastes like (not the words for how we describe various tastes)? I may not have a private language (I tend to agree with you, and W., there)—but when I experience a toothache, I feel it: you don’t. The feeling—that is, the sensation—is prior to language. You’re surely not saying that whatever sensory experience I am having right now is itself a public affair?
And when you describe to me how the food tastes, you might, within the limits of our shared language, give me an idea what the food tastes like, based on other things I’ve tasted. But you cannot give me the taste.
Language is for communicating; it itself (except, of course as an activity, like dancing, eating, etc.) is not the lived experience. And it is that lived experience—before making thoughts about it—that I take as the primary level of “trueness.” Making words/thoughts about it also becomes part of that lived experience, but that is secondary.
EDIT: Possible that we're talking past each other here. You seem to be talking about language; I am attempting to use language to point beyond language. You are focusing on my words, like the cat looking at my finger. That's okay: I may not be a very good pointer...
28 Aug 06
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Originally posted by vistesdInteresting post. Maybe we could condense it down to your Level 0 and then just one other catch-all level called "Pathways to Misology." :'(😞
[b]Level 0: Just being, and being aware, before all images, thoughts, concepts, identifiers, labels, words... No “making-thinking,” just being aware of the phenomenal world and myself in/of that world. Not even naming things; just being present to the suchness in my own suchness which is also “of” that... Just here, in just-here. The sense of separ ...[text shortened]... rueness,” coherence, harmony...).
These are just some conjectures from my own explorations...[/b]
28 Aug 06
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Originally posted by LemonJelloLOL!! I think I might have to reduce myself to koanic one-liners (ala Widget), and assume that a thousand such arrows will miss the mark (strictly because of my own poor marksmanship) for any one that might hit--hell, maybe I'll miss a thousand out of a thousand. I'm just lucky that I managed to finally hit myself (well, no, I had help--e.g., Chiyono via LJ!).
Interesting post. Maybe we could condense it down to your Level 0 and then just one other catch-all level called "Pathways to Misology." :'(😞
Yeah, the Zen masters are great misologists. I just hate to give up the fun of it. 🙂
28 Aug 06
Originally posted by vistesdDo you need the menu to tell you what the food tastes like (not the words for how we describe various tastes)?
[b]But "meal" is a concept in our (shared) language!
Yes, and we are trying to communicate in that shared language. Granted.
Can you taste food without that concept? Do you need the menu to tell you what the food tastes like (not the words for how we describe various tastes)? I may not have a private language (I tend to agree with you, and W., ...[text shortened]... ing words/thoughts about it also becomes part of that lived experience, but that is secondary.[/b]
But without language to describe how food tastes, what are we left with that we can meaningfully speak of?
I experience a toothache, I feel it: you don’t. The feeling—that is, the sensation—is prior to language.
Wittgenstein always said he was not denying the existence of anything. Certainly, it makes perfect sense to say your pains are yours, and pains are felt. How could it be otherwise?
Wittgenstein's point is about what it means to say "I feel a pain". To him, saying such a thing is part of "pain-behaviour" - part of the criteria we use to say, correctly, that someone is in pain. The supposed "private object" is the wheel spinning freely; "not a nothing, but not a something either". If it is irrelevant to our language, and if we cannot but use that language, then we have to accept the consequence that supposed "private objects" play no part in any discourse.
28 Aug 06
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Originally posted by dottewellI’m laughing at myself as I say this, but— Agreed! In fact, if I disagreed at any point, it was accidental!
Do you need the menu to tell you what the food tastes like (not the words for how we describe various tastes)?
But without language to describe how food tastes, what are we left with that we can meaningfully speak of?
I experience a toothache, I [b]feel it: you don’t. The feeling—that is, the sensation—is prior to language. accept the consequence that supposed "private objects" play no part in any discourse.[/b]
Except: do you consider poetry to be “meaningful” discourse? Metaphor? W. himself—and I think this is something that he did not repudiate in his later work, though I may be reading him wrongly there—used the Tractatus, at least in part, to point to that which cannot be meaningfully spoken of, by exhausting what can be meaningfully spoken about. To the extent that that was his “game,” he lines right up with the Zennists; only his methodolgy was different.
So I think that W. would agree that language—although perhaps not in its ordinary usage—can be used indirectlyas such a pointer. The Zennists tend to use metaphor and paradox as such indirect pointers.
28 Aug 06
Originally posted by LemonJelloMaybe that isn't a bad thing.
[b]Truth is justified assertability.
What sort of justification here would be sufficient? I'm asking because we often take it to be the case that many forms of justification (epistemological, e.g.) are compatible with falsity.[/b]
Take the statement "Grass is green". Well, some grass isn't green. Also, it's greenness maybe a property of our perceptual apparatus, not grass itself. However, despite these complications, which cast doubt on the strict accuracy of the assertion, we are certainly justified, for most purposes, in asserting without risk of meaningful disagreement, that "grass is green".
In short, for different purposes, different sorts of justifications--more or less rigorous, profound, and comprehensive--will suffice.
28 Aug 06
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Originally posted by vistesd[/b]I think there's no getting away from the fact that Wittgenstein's later work does do away with that idea; on the other hand, even though we feel like with the later Wittgenstein we are losing something absolutely crucial to human experience (the "private" "feelingy" bit), we're not really losing anything. We can still talk of poetry, and art, and of the feelings it provokes; we can still talk of metaphor; I can still say "This music made my heart soar!" And it can still be true. The only issue is what I mean when I say it. Wittgenstein (later) would reject as nonsensical that we are "describing an inner object/reaction"; one could almost say, for him, that the utterance is pure expression.
I’m laughing at myself as I say this, but— Agreed! In fact, if I disagreed at any point, it was accidental!
Except: do you consider poetry to be “meaningful” discourse? Metaphor? W. himself—and I think this is something that he did not repudiate in his later work, though I may be reading him wrongly there—used the Tractatus, at least in part, to [b]p ...[text shortened]... /i]as such a pointer. The Zennists tend to use metaphor and paradox as such indirect pointers.
28 Aug 06
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After some thought, I think there's another, related but slightly different, reason people might use "profound phrases" like "Truth" or "the meaning of life" than to try to seem deep and wise to others. "Profoundness" is a particular feeling about something; a feeling that something is incredibly important or significant. That doesn't really decribe the feeling; feelings are tough to describe. What I am referring to is an emotion; something that feels like a "realization" of something or someone's incredible complexity, wisdom, importance etc.; maybe "awe" is a good word to describe what I mean. People may use these "profound" phrases to try to communicate that particular deep emotion they feel about something. In these cases I think that such people are usually making the common mistake that their powerful emotion must be caused by some tremendously, objectively important quality of whatever they feel that emotion for. In fact nothing can be "objectively important"; the phrase is a paradox since importance is by it's very nature subjective. "truth", uncapitalized (or in the case of this thread, written without the quotes), may not seem to emphasize the powerful feeling of "profoundness" the person feels and which they think is proof of this kind of crucially significant and awe-inspiring quality than an object or idea must possess - after all, they "perceived" this quality! Of course, this is flawed, just as when it's incorrect when someone says they "experienced" God when what they really experienced was, for example, "speaking in tongues", or maybe a deep feeling of peace and clearing of the conscience, which they then assumed was caused by God.
With respect to the current discussion, I believe that many people are thinking of "truth" in the capital T sense (though no one here actually used the capital T). That's why when I gave a definition it didn't "satisfy" ngeisler88. He wants some answer which will communicate that "profound" feeling right back at him rather than an answer which actually tells him what "truth" is as the word is correctly used in English.
29 Aug 06
Originally posted by vistesdWe are simple receptors, because we are not our sensory apparati and we are not our brains. I am fairly certain that people (by this I mean the "self" or "sense of self"; what I would call a soul if I used that term, though I don't) are created by our brains and would not exist without it but we are not our brains.
[b]well, those things I directly perceive are true.
What we know are the perceptions, since our sensory apparatus and our brains participate in the perception, and we are not simple receptors. What that direct experience is, I call “just-this” (a Zen phrase)—what you’re feeling, sensing, etc, right now, before you begin to apply words, analysis, desc ...[text shortened]... were a thing that they could examine from outside...
If that’s still confusing: my fault...[/b]
If I want to be nitpicky, I suppose that only claims can be true or false and not objects or perceptions themselves. The statement that "I perceive that I am two finger typing" is absolutely true. Now the statement "I am two finger typing" or even "I have fingers" I think are almost certainly true, but I can't say that they are true without technically claiming I know something I cannot know.